Bicyclists in the Washington area have a new online map to help them decide how best to traverse the region’s traffic-clogged streets and trails.
The Capital Bikeways map, created by intrepid local bloggers and cyclists, combines information from jurisdictional bike maps with listings for local bike shops, pictures of tricky crossings or intersections, and write-ups of recent bike-related incidents on a Google map.
The site also shows the 10 existing stations for SmartBike DC, the city’s bike-sharing program that debuted Wednesday.
“It pulls from several different sources, some of which anyone can update and some of which can only be updated by certain users,” said cycling blogger David Cranor, who entered bike lane, bike route and bike trail information for the section of the map that covers the District.
While much of the bike lane and trail information can be found on separate county Web sites, Capital Bikeways is the first to pull it all together in an online format.
It also allows users to enter comments about specific locations or add a write-up of an incident to the map.
The most recent incident mapped was entered July 24, when police were ticketing bikers for riding the wrong way on New Hampshire Avenue near U Street Northwest.
The map identifies corridors that users believe are more dangerous for bikers, such as the stretch of M Street Northwest that runs through Georgetown, and a long portion of Massachusetts Avenue Northwest.
“It seems like an interesting tool,” said Glen Harrison, safety education coordinator for the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, who cautioned that maps that are based on user-edited content can be subjective or out of date.
Harrison said the group is working with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments to create a similar, official online bike map for the region, but the project was placed on hold when a deal fell through with the company that was going to enter the data.
Cyclists can view the Capital Bikeways map at mooniker.net/capitalbikeways.
